'I kept getting the same Access Denied signal from everything I tried.'

'You were trying different ways to get the same data?'

'I spent well over an hour at it.'

'I wish you'd told me, darling,' she said, her voice changing to one of concern.

'Why?'

'I know those machines. I spent a month down there until you rescued me. Remember?'

'I was working those machines…' I almost said before she was born, but the difference in our ages was not something I wanted to keep reminding myself about. '… years ago,' I finished lamely.

'Then you should know about "sneaky-peak",' she said.

'Who, or what in hell is sneaky-peak?'

'If you'd taken proper training, instead of just tapping away and hoping for the best, you'd not do silly things.'

'What are you talking about?' I said.

'When you get any sort of Access Denied signal the machine flags it and records your name and number.'

'Does it?' I asked as she went into the hall and called upstairs to where Billy and Sally were supposed to be doing their homework under the supervision of Doris.

'Dinner, children! Are you ready, Doris?'

She came back into the room and added, 'And that's not all. It lists every file you fail to access. When the Data Security Clerks run their analysis program they can see exactly what it is you were trying to get that is beyond your security clearance.'

'I didn't know that.'

'Obviously, darling.' A kitchen timer sounded and she uttered a muffled Hungarian curse that I'd learned to recognize, and went to the kitchen to get our dinner.

I got up and followed her and watched her getting bright new pots from the oven and loading them on to the trolley. 'You don't know how often they run their security program, do you?'

'Make yourself useful,' she said, and left me with the trolley. I pushed it into the dining room. 'You can't erase it, darling. If that's what you're hoping for, forget it.'

Sally and Billy came in carrying their school books. Billy was fourteen and had suddenly grown tall. He had wire bracing on his teeth. It must have been uncomfortable but he never complained. He was a stoic. Sally was a couple of years younger, still very much a child, and still suffering from the loss of her mother. The truth was that both children missed their mother. They never said so, they kept their grief hidden deep inside and I could find no way of even beginning to console them.

Gloria had made it a routine to check their homework after dinner each evening. She was wonderful to them. Sometimes they seemed to learn more from her in their half an hour of cheerful instruction than they learned all day at school. And Gloria had gained the children's confidence by means of these lessons and that was no less important to all of us. And yet I sometimes wondered if the children didn't resent the happiness I'd found with Gloria. I suspected that they wanted me to bear my rightful share of their sorrow.

'Hands washed?'

'Yes, Auntie Gloria,' they both chorused with their palms held high. Doris held her hands up too and smiled shyly. Newly slimmed, this quiet – and hitherto overweight – girl from a little village in Devon had been with the children a long time now. Having started as a nanny she now shuttled them back and forth to their respective schools, gave Sally some lunch at home, did some shopping and scorched my shirts. She was of about Gloria's age and sometimes I wondered what she really thought about Gloria setting up home with me. But there would be little chance of her confiding any such thoughts to me. In my presence Doris was inscrutable, but with the children I could often hear her yelling and joining in their noisy games.

'Billy can plug the trolley into the electricity socket for me,' said Gloria. I sat down. Doris was fidgeting with the cutlery. Abstaining from eating chocolate seemed to have given her chronic withdrawal symptoms.

The trolley with the built-in warmer – to say nothing of the brightly coloured casseroles, and striped pot-holders – was Gloria's idea. It was going to revolutionize our lives, as well as being wonderful when we gave dinner parties.

'Chipolata sausages!' I said. 'And Uncle Ben rice! My favourites.'

Gloria didn't respond. It was the third time in a week we'd had those damned pork sausages. Perhaps if I'd had a proper lunch I would have had sense enough to keep a civil tongue in my head.

Gloria didn't look at me, she was serving the children. 'The rice is a bit burned,' she told them. 'But if you don't take it from the bottom it will be all right.'

She served two sausages to each of us. She'd had the heat too high and they were black and shrunken. She put the rest of them back on the warmer. Then she gave us all some spinach. It was watery.

Having served the meal she sat down and took an unusually large swig of her wine before starting to eat.

'I'm sorry,' I said in the hope of breaking her tight-lipped silence.

In a voice unnaturally high she said, 'I'm no good at cooking, Bernard. You knew that. I never pretended otherwise.' The children looked at Doris, and Doris looked down at her plate.

'It's delicious,' I said.

'Don't bloody well patronize me!' she said loudly and angrily. 'It's absolutely awful. Do you think I don't know it's all spoiled?'

The children looked at her with that dispassionate interest that children show for events outside their experience. 'Don't cry, Auntie Gloria,' said Sally. 'You can have my sausage: it's almost not burned at all.'

Gloria got to her feet and rushed from the room. The children looked at me to see what I would do.

'Carry on eating your supper, children,' I said, 'I must go and see Auntie Gloria.'

'Give her a big kiss, Daddy,' advised Sally. 'That's sure to make everything all right.'

Doris took the mustard away from Billy and said, 'Mustard is not good for children.'

Some days with Gloria were idyllic. And not just days. For week after week we lived in such harmony and happiness that I could hardly believe my good fortune. But at other times we clashed. And when one thing went wrong, other discords followed like hammer blows. Lately there had been more and more of these disagreements and I knew that the fault was usually mine.

'Don't switch on the light,' she said quietly. I went into the bedroom expecting to face a tirade. Instead I found Gloria inappropriately apologetic. The only light came from the bedside clock-radio but it was enough to see that she was crying. 'It's no good, Bernard,' she said. She was sprawled across the bed, the corner of an embroidered handkerchief held tightly in her teeth as if she was trying to summon up enough courage to eat it. 'I try and try but it's no use.'

'It's my fault,' I said and bent over and kissed her.

She lifted her face to me but her expression was unchanging. 'It's no one's fault,' she said sadly. 'You try. I know you do.'

I sat on the bed and touched her bare arm. 'Living together is not easy,' I said. 'It takes time to adjust.'

For a few moments neither of us spoke. I was tempted to suggest that we sent Doris off to cooking classes. But a man who lives in a house with two women knows better than to sprinkle even a mote of dust upon the delicate balance of power.

'It's your wife,' said Gloria suddenly.

'Fiona? What do you mean?'

'She was the right one for you.'

'Don't talk nonsense.'

'She was beautiful and clever.' Gloria wiped her nose. 'When you were with Fiona everything was always perfect. I know it was.'

For a moment I said nothing. I could take all this admiration of Fiona from everyone except Gloria. I didn't want Gloria implying that I'd been a lucky fellow; I wanted her to say how fortunate Fiona had been to capture me. 'We had more help,' I said.

'She was rich,' said Gloria and the tears came to her eyes again.